What's your pick for a top of the line laptop for Vista Ultimate

[LindaHewitt]

Which laptop vendor and model number would you select for a top of the line laptop designed to run Vista Ultimate for a Road Warrior.

I have checked out Lenovo's T60p and T60p wide screen and Dell's Latitude D-820.

Here are my requirements.

• Separate Graphics card with a minimum 256 MB dedicated RAM
• 4 GB RAM
• 14" to 15.4 laptop screen
• 7200 RPM hard drive

My goal is to get the fastest most productive system possible but not to pay for extra for insignificant increases in speed-productivity.

Which laptops do you think fit this criteria and are the best buy?

Cheers,

Linda

[LindaHewitt]

Here are some questions that I have:

• To go from 2 GB to 4 GB RAM costs $1,460 -- Why and is it justified?
  
• On the Intel Dual Core Processor, there is the 533 MHz speed or the 677 MHz -- what do I gain by going with the higher speed?
  
• There is also the issue of the 5400 RPM hard drive versus the 7200 RPM hard drive -- I think that the faster hard drive would definitely provide an increase in productivity -- is there any documentation on this anywhere?
  
• Why isn't Vista Ultimate offered on these top of the line laptops?
  
• Are there hardware issues, which is driving the vendors to NOT offer Vista Ultimate on the top of the line laptops?
  
• If not, then if the laptops do not come with Vista Ultimate, can they be upgraded?
  
• Is the Intel dual processor T7200 processor with 4MB L2 cache vs 2MB for the T5xxx processors worth an additional $150.

I am hoping that the hardware geeks on VDR can help to answer some of these questions.

TIA,

Linda

[Abhoth]

• To go from 2 GB to 4 GB RAM costs $1,460 -- Why and is it justified?
  Strikes me as a bit of overkill, especially for that cost... 2GB should do the trick.
  
• On the Intel Dual Core Processor, there is the 533 MHz speed or the 677 MHz -- what do I gain by going with the higher speed?
  Simply put, speed... it's the speed your CPU talks to your memory at, one's faster than the other.
  
• There is also the issue of the 5400 RPM hard drive versus the 7200 RPM hard drive -- I think that the faster hard drive would definitely provide an increase in productivity -- is there any documentation on this anywhere?
  Once again, it's a speed thing... speed is speed... will assist maybe with productivity. Although productivity has more to do with humans much of the time and I won't comment further! ;-)
  
• Why isn't Vista Ultimate offered on these top of the line laptops?
  Just a matter of time on that...
  
• Are there hardware issues, which is driving the vendors to NOT offer Vista Ultimate on the top of the line laptops?
  Vista loves hardware, give it more!
  
• If not, then if the laptops do not come with Vista Ultimate, can they be upgraded?
  Depends I suppose, but generally most should upgrade well enough if you want to go there.
  
• Is the Intel dual processor T7200 processor with 4MB L2 cache vs 2MB for the T5xxx processors worth an additional $150.
  Another speed and performance increase there Linda... I think I'd spend on the 4MB cache with the money saved from the memory savings!

[LindaHewitt]

Aboth,

Thanks.

There are two reasons that I was considering getting 4 MB RAM and they are:

1. So that I would be able to use Virtual Machine technology to run betas or to do demostrations.

2. New software may require more RAM

However, I have decided to go with 2 MB, so long as the laptop has 4 MB and I don't have there are empty slots to add the additional 2 MB.

Do you have any recommendations on which vendor's laptop that you would recommend?

Thanks,

Linda